Growth

This evening I have been asking myself "what have you done and not done recently in order to grow and change spiritually and emotionally", taking a personal inventory. I am aware that my tendency is to stay within my comfort zone and not change much. Recently my working with spirits, my interactions with the medical community and my understanding of the human condition have all moved me out of my comfort zone and caused change. I will continue to expand and explore my role with each of these and keep open to there being more. "To undertake to live a discerned life, to endeavor daily to be attuned to authentic movements of the Spirit leading us into greater fullness of life, is a strenuous undertaking."

Beaming Love 2

Yesterday I described an encounter I had in the grocery store and the power of beaming love at someone. I do the same when in meetings, talking to people, working in the garden or grocery shopping and the action has similar and remarkable effects. For me, it is part of walking around in a bubble of love and the action has a profound impact, particularly for those open to it but even with those who are not. In the words of Claremont deCastillejo "For there to be a meeting, it seems as though a third, a something else, is always present. You may call it Love, or the Holy Spirit. Jungians would say that it is the presence of the Self. If this 'Other' is present, there cannot have failed to be a meeting." It is also important for me to remember what she went on to write, that "Great deeds can only be achieved when we are more than our little selves. When we are lent wings we should not reject them."

Beaming Love

While traveling through the store aisles and gathering my groceries today I kept passing a very young Indian woman and her young son. They were both charming in appearance and, without even thinking about it, I beamed love at them. She immediately responded with a smile and then told her boy to say "hi", which he did. Later in the parking garage as I was preparing to leave, they passed my car and waved good bye. This was a wonderful experience during a routine activity. "It [inner silence] is to establish an inner peace, an inner harmony, which will allow us authentically to contribute to the establishment of an outer peace and an outer harmony in the world at large." (Seeger)

God

Using the daily practices I outline in my book I have encountered a loving and powerful force that I call God. Having opened myself to that power, I now feel it and live within it all the time. I believe (know?) it is the Kingdom that Jesus spoke of. In the words of Pagels "Yet I sometimes encountered, in churches and elsewhere—in the presence of a venerable Buddhist monk, in the cantor’s singing at a bar mitzvah, and on mountain hikes—something compelling, powerful, even terrifying that I could not ignore, and I had come to see that, besides belief, [any spiritual path] Christianity involves practice—and paths toward transformation."

Perspective

Today during a conversation with someone who feels greatly disturbed over the way we are treating each other and this planet, I found myself acknowledging the unpleasant actions and saying they are both terrible and wonderful. I cannot say that I truly understand why they are both terrible and wonderful, but I could and can feel the truth of the statement. Meditating on the paradox it occurs to me that temporally the actions often cause difficulties or death, the termination of earthly existence. From an eternal perspective, life is very short and death matters little, while the growth and learning resulting from such actions bring us closer to understanding love and connection. In the words of Walsch "If you believe the noises of the world rather than the silences of your soul, you will be lost."

Presence

Today I had just finished mowing a good part of our backyard, was winding up the extension cord I use for the mower and I gazed at our yard and beyond feeling the gratitude, amazement and presence I often feel at such times. There was a fledgling red-bellied woodpecker at our feeder, two large willow oaks and two red maples in our own yard. Also within view were a sweet-gum, several maples of various kinds, a couple of black-walnuts and lots of undergrowth. The temperature was around seventy and everything was vibrant and moist, quite a sight. In the words of Jesus according to the Tomas gospel "this primordial light not only brought the entire universe into being but still shines through everything we see and touch."

Love

Today I attended a recovery meeting which I have been to twice before so it is relatively new for me. In this meeting I have encountered the love, support and spirituality I have been looking for and am comfortable with. So far they talk about the whole range of human emotions from gratitude to anger and empathy to distrust, all with soft, loving laughter at the silliness of it all, very refreshing. Personally, I enjoy being human while also finding the situation silly and Love it all. In the words of Walsch "So, too, is love not the absence of an emotion (hatred, anger, lust, jealousy, covetousness), but the summation of all feeling. It is the sum total. The aggregate amount. The everything."

Gratitude

Today I just feel very grateful that I am able to perform life’s daily activities and feel no need to participate in the many potential distractions. I exercised, fed the birds, went grocery shopping, mowed some lawn and fixed a delicious dinner of oven-roasted veggies, all relatively mundane activities but I could do them and in the past I could not. Conditions could be a lot worse - they have been and may be in the future. The present is pleasant and for that I am grateful.

Near Death Experience

I was the main focus and leader of an overwhelmingly loving, healing, wellness group today, a powerful session. We talked about death and dying, though not the way those topics are commonly talked about. We did mention the normal fears of the unknown frequently felt leading up to death. We then talked of my own "near death experience" and the extreme Love and well-being I encountered on "the other side" of my brief death experience, with the suggestion that is what death feels like. My N.D.E. happened eleven years ago and I still carry the feeling with me. As St John of the Cross said "There are encounters with God such that the devil cannot possibly counterfeit them, nor can one’s imagination create them. Some are so indelibly imprinted in the center of one’s being that they can neither be described nor forgotten."

Life

Looking over my past posts it’s striking how much my feelings vary from day to day. Today I feel dissatisfied and want more of everything in my life - which seems to be part of my nature as a recovering person. I have three files of spiritual quotes, about sixteen pages each, that I go through daily in order to experience the life I talk about in these blogs. They help keep me on track. Today I especially need to be reminded of the words of Claremont deCastillejo from years ago: "We have forgotten how to allow. The essence of the Rainmaker is that he knows how to allow. The Rainmaker walks in the middle of the road, neither held back by the past nor hurrying towards the future, neither lured to the right nor to the left, but allowing the past and the future, the outer world of the right and the inner images of the left all to play upon him while he attends, no more than attends, to the living moment in which these forces meet.

In those rare moments when all the opposites meet within a man, good and also evil, light and also darkness, spirit and also body, brain and also heart, masculine focused consciousness and at the same time feminine diffuse awareness, wisdom of maturity and childlike wonder; when all are allowed and none displaces any other in the mind of a man, then that man, though he may utter no word is in an attitude of prayer. Whether he knows it or not his own receptive allowing will affect all those around him; rain will fall on the parched fields, and tears will turn bitter grief to flowering sorrow, while stricken children dry their eyes and laugh." I selected the "rainmaker ideal" as a goal many years ago and I feel more at peace being reminded. Time to meditate.